A curriculum designed to make students "understand" rather than subject them to rote learning and memorization—it resulted from the US's fear of lagging behind Russia, when it launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite.

Most math educators agree that the New Math had done more harm than good—the emphasis on the "why" left little time to learn the "how."

The mathematical equivalent of NEWater—Singapore’s used water to meet its current water needs. Recycled Singapore math questions from past school exam papers favored by textbook publishers to save time and cost, instead of dearly paying teachers to write new questions.

In the light of oft-ridiculous deadlines set by Singapore’s Ministry of Education (MOE) to textbook publishers, Machiavellian math publishers find that relying on NEWMath questions is a faster and cheaper way than begging busy textbook authors to design new word problems.